Tuesday, April 14, 2015

First of all, I must apologize for the lack of updates and new posts in 2015. I decided a few months ago I should finally organize and catalogue all the boxes of live concert recordings I have stacked in Mandarin orange boxes lining my shelves in my mini art/music studio room. Back in my tape trading days, I kept up to date a list detailing artist, venue, date, time length and I rated the sound quality. My last update was 2003 and since then the majority of the recordings are downloaded and available through the good ol' (and how could we have lived without) world wide web. Yes, the internet really is a tape trader's dream with recordings much more accessible and shared amongst fans and completest. It really was a game changer and the amount of shows I've collected since 2003 has increased 100x, maybe even more. Cataloging has been a lot more time consuming than I anticipated. Many of the discs were labelled, some with setlists, but I have five boxes of semi-unmarked discs that are missing details such as venue or date that I'm still trying to figure out with the help of the internet. It's tedious, but it's a lot of fun and I've made many great discoveries I'd almost forgotten about. Right now, I'm going through the last of the external hard drives, so I'm close to finished. I'm excited to share some of these gems and I promise I'll have some up on the blog soon.

Last year, I started to slowly digitize my live cassette tapes. I had hoped to have more converted, especially since I have many masters that haven't been played in 15-20 years. I'll also be slowly posting them soon, but I'm starting with some non-masters (Sleater-Kinney from 1997 was one).

Last May, R.E.M. released two rarity collections, Complete Rarities: I.R.S. 1982-1987 and Complete Rarities: Warner Bros 1988-2011. To me, the first four R.E.M. albums are essential for anyone that wants to understand why I love music from the 80's. These albums are great and an excellent companion is the I.R.S. rarities collection. My other favourite R.E.M. album is the 1987 compilation, Dead Letter Office, which coincidentally is well represented in the collection. To be honest, I've always enjoyed the old days when R.E.M. played covers live, often unpredictable and off-beat, but well suited to the band. The Tyrones show from 1980 I'm posting is one of their earliest recorded shows, as they played their first live show as R.E.M. only six months earlier. This recording sounds fresh and crisp and their setlist of songs is unlike anything they did later. Lots of covers, unreleased songs and an early version of Rockville. Even if you're not a fan of R.E.M. or thought they sold out and sounded too commercial have a listen, this is where alternative-jangly indie rock began and it sounded oooh so good, back in 1980!
Enjoy!